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NEW INDEPENDENCE VOTE IN SCOTLAND LOOMS AS NATIONALISTS WIN
- By The Financial District
- May 9, 2021
- 2 min read
The Scottish National Party (SNP), which favors Scottish independence, won the elections in the regional parliament on Saturday, May 8, 2021, making the prospect of another referendum on breaking away from the United Kingdom more likely, Benedikt von Imhoff and Isobel Frodhsam reported for Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).
The SNP won 64 seats in parliament, the Electoral Commission in Edinburgh announced on Saturday evening, but narrowly missed an absolute majority of 65. However, as the Greens, who are also calling for independence, won eight seats, pro-independence parties have a clear majority.
Another Scottish independence referendum is the "will of the country," said First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. With Scotland doing its own Brexit or exit from Britain, the United Kingdom would wither away.
Sturgeon, who leads the SNP, has said that she would push ahead with a second referendum on Scottish independence from the rest of the United Kingdom if her party wins a majority in parliament and "when the time is right."
On Saturday, she pledged to make fighting the pandemic her first priority but said that the people of Scotland should be able to decide on the constitutional question.
"It is a commitment made to the people," she said. "It is the will of the country."
Earlier in the evening, Sturgeon said any Westminster politician who "now stands in the way of a Scottish independence referendum is not picking a fight with the SNP, you are picking a fight with the democratic wishes of the Scottish people." She added, "you will not succeed."
Later, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson invited Sturgeon to a Union summit, saying that the devolved leaders in Wales and Northern Ireland would also be invited. Wales and Northern Ireland are also gunning for independence, leaving England alone with its overseas territories as far as the Falklands and as near as Jersey, a crown estate, as part of its Balkanized empire.
